


NickyFish's Valentine

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-03-15
Updated: 2000-03-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 13:24:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11336406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Anniversaries and Valentines are meaningless to one. Just a tattered paper heart, tossed into the shadows and alleys of loneliness.





	NickyFish's Valentine

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

NickyFish's Valentine by Mik

TITLE: NickyFish's Valentine  
NAME: Mik  
E-MAIL:   
CATEGORY: SRA  
RATING: NC-17. M/K. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution.  
SUMMARY: Anniversaries and Valentines are meaningless to one. Just a tattered paper heart, tossed into the shadows and alleys of loneliness.  
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist ...  
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: This is an AU, very vague spoilers for multiple episodes, nothing current.  
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Krycek Mulder NC-17  
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Nicholas Lea, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20th Century FOX Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use. I'd rather say that they really are mine, but I've been advised to deny everything.

Author's note: Sometimes it takes a fight to get you to write.

If you like this, there's more at http://www.squidge.org/3wstop  If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.

* * *

NICKYFISH'S VALENTINE  
by Mik  
  


RED HEARTS

I've seen him twice since he hung up the phone that day. Once, quite accidentally. On an 'assignment' in San Francisco, I nearly stumbled over him at the scene of the crime. He looked dreadful. Too thin, even for him, his tie askew, hair disheveled, everything about him said 'I don't give a damn'.

I was surprised that it hurt me to see him that way. I'm not sentimental by nature, but it hurt to see the object of my obsessions looking as if he had not only stopped caring, he had stopped living.

He was kneeling over the body, one of my less elaborate hits. Two tiny puncture wounds at the carotid, left to bleed to death. I have done better versions of this that actually suggested something vampiric. But I was in a hurry and hadn't even had time to make sure the wound was fatal. I didn't expect the body to be discovered so quickly, which speaks to the fact that my mind wasn't really on the task at hand. And I certainly didn't expect to see him show up on the scene within an hour or two.

I should have faded the second I saw him, but my heart lurched and my body went into full revolt. So I stood there, watching him watch a dead body, as if he expected it to wake and name its killer.

And then, suddenly, he lifted his head and scanned the crowd, his eyes intent and searching, blazing an oxygen rich green as they danced into the shadows where I stood. And for one moment, I knew he knew I was there. I tensed, waiting for him to rise, part the throng of morbidly curious, like Moses at the shores of the Red Sea. Then the fire died and his face became as lifeless as the corpse he stood over. He resumed his consideration of the body.

Released, I slid away, into the unseen, to wallow in dreams and memories and the bleeding of my own shattered heart.  
  


BLUE HEARTS

"He almost looks at peace."

"Mulder, the man is dead."

I continued to kneel beside him. His face was absolutely relaxed, as if just before death consumed him, he had some kind of epiphany that he was laying down his burdens. He had burdens. He was a human. He did have an extra helping however. A nice little wife in Dayton. A hot little trick in Los Angeles. And neither of them would be kissing him good night ever again. "Yeah. Murdered."

"What?" She arched one perfect little brow at me. "No vampires? No soul suckers? No aliens? Just ... murdered?"

I ignored her. I had ignored her a lot of late. I had ignored everyone lately. Everything. Somewhere, somehow, my soul had drained out of my body the same way blood had drained out of this man. And probably with less struggle.

He walked away from me. That easily. As if I meant ...

Nothing. The truth is, I meant nothing to him. I was the one picking out lace curtains and naming children and raising bunnies. He was just fucking me. That's all.

That's all. That's it. He penetrated me. Entered my body and overshot. Pierced my heart as well. I was only an animated sex toy for him. Just lie still and let him come. Let him make me come and cry and scream. Clean me up and leave me lying there, just like this poor sap.

Six months, and I'm still looking for that sign, that rabbit, that dream of finding him, being found. Found. I'm lost without him.

It's pathetic to feel so empty, so unwanted. I'm a grown man. I don't need anyone, least of all a one-armed, two-faced murderer like that ... murderer ...

I looked up. Something prickled the back of my neck. Something stung the shell of my heart. So many curious faces staring at me. So many people whose lives were so empty and pointless that they had to come look at someone who might be worse off than themselves. So many people like me.

For a moment ...

For a moment I knew he was there. I FELT him. The son of a bitch was breathing the same air I did, seeing the same dead face. And yet, he wasn't there. He couldn't be. If this was Al -- Krycek's work, he'd been long gone ... Alaska, Cancun, Moscow, Des Moines by now. Still, a disquiet stole over me, hung around me like a shroud.

Damn it, I missed him.

Damn it, I ...

I love him.  
  


FALSE HEARTS

The second time I saw him was an even greater surprise. Surprise? No, shock. Electrical. Cold. Horrifying. As if the fingers of death were curling around my spine. Two days later, in a little wharfside bar in the seediest part of the City, a place where favors of all kinds are exchanged while everyone looks the other way; women, information, drugs, death and a Vodka that isn't even supposed to be legal in Russia let alone in this country.

He was sitting, slumped in a booth, a shot glass in front of him. He was even more disheveled than before. He looked as if he had been sleeping in his suit. His tie was gone. He had a day's growth of beard that did not compliment his face, but emphasized his dour, defeated expression.

I sat in the shadows, feet hooked over the rungs of my battered bar stool, watching him in the muted light of the smoky room. His face was a mirror for my soul; ravished and in despair. I ached for him. I hated him. I loved him.

Ached for his evident pain, the complete surrender of his hope. Hated him for reminding me that I had caused that pain, and I had the power to ease it. Loved him for... loved him.

I caught myself putting down my glass, sliding to my feet, wanting to cross the room and touch him. But I remained where I was. I had no right to touch him, feel him, hear his voice, coax a smile to those incredible lips. I had no right to lure him off to a seedy hotel room, plunder his body as I did so often in my dreams. I walked out on him. I pushed him away like a woman on a diet pushes away cheesecake. No matter how sweet he was to my lips, he was a weight within me I couldn't afford to carry.

As I sat there, watching him watch the sallow liquid in his glass, the door opened. Another unlikely figure stepped inside, stalled, glanced around and then, steeling resolve marched purposefully to his booth. I was just close enough to hear her impatient murmur.

He answered with a shrug.

She spoke again, sharply.

He kept his eyes fixed on his glass, shaking his head slowly.

She settled, reluctantly, into the booth. Reached for his hand. Her murmur was gentler, almost compassionate.

He still said nothing.

She got up, shouldered her bag, turned away. Her face was granite, with dew spilling down.

I watched her all the way to the door.

When I looked back, his head was in his hands. His shoulders shook slightly.

I left.

In the window of a drug store three blocks down, something caught my eye, stabbed the place where my soul had been ripped open. I took deliberate steps to cross the street, escape from the accusation I saw in my own reflection. But I turned inside, made a purchase or two, including a blank card with kittens on it, went back outside, found a bench and began to write.

Tears blurred my vision toward the end, and I wiped them away, roughly, shoved things in my pockets and returned to the bar.

With a crooked finger, I beckoned the bartender, even as I watched Mulder lift a glass with shaky fingers and toss back something akin to gasoline. I held out my purchases, and despite his incredulous stare, tucked a fifty dollar bill in his shirt pocket.

It took every ounce of will in my body to turn and walk out that time. But I am strong. Too damned strong.  
  


TRUE HEARTS

Pathetic.

Sitting in the lowest, dirtiest dive in all of San Francisco, drinking something that could also be used to clean gun metal, leaving a foul, oily taste in my mouth. But, it reminds me of him. And I kept drinking it. I've been drinking it for two days. Ever since I walked away from the cooling corpse and a curious crowd.

I knew he was there. I could feel him, smell him, taste him. But I didn't see him. I didn't reach out and catch him, shake him, demand to know why he left me.

How could another man do this to me? I never lost sleep over a woman in my life. I've loved and lost, been abandoned and betrayed and done plenty of betraying on my own. So what did he do to me, to leave me so empty when he was gone? Surely couldn't merely be the sex, although almost from the first, he need only whisper my name and I stiffened like a flagpole. He never made promises, never whispered endearments, never did any of the things that should cement a love affair. We only laughed, ate, played like children, slept and made love. Wiggled all over one another like puppies. Laughed ourselves to tears and couldn't remember what started it. Kissed until our heads were spinning. Danced. Oh, yeah, we danced. And then he took his bow, and left.

The door opened, and I blinked into an unexpected light. She came to my booth and looked down. "You missed our flight home."

I shrugged. Home. It's a meaningless concept now. It's just a room or two with a brand new door.

"Damn it, Mulder, you're going to get fired."

I shook my head and reached for my drink.

She settled down in front of me, reached for my hand. "He's not coming back, Mulder," she said sadly, softly. She stood and left.

And I wanted to put my head down and cry.

Instead, I ordered another drink.

A few minutes, maybe a few hours later, the bartender brought me some coffee. Smelled burnt. I wrinkled my nose and waved it away.

He set something else down. An envelope and a small paper bag. I opened the envelope. Read. Swallowed hard. Read it again, as it began to blur ...

Just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me.

You made me laugh more in two months than anyone else in my entire life. You've made me smile, giggle, wiggle, moan, cry, sigh, beg, and scream. Even now, even so far away, you touch me.

You may never hold my hand again, but you stroke my soul, nightly.

You made me a part of something for a while. Gratis. A family, a marriage, a romance, an eternal love.

You became a harbor for me to sail into. Hold me safe, keep me from storms and pirates and dry rot. You became an inferno I sink into, lost, and glad to go, consumed in the licking flames of passion. You became my pillow. My shield. My pleasure. My treasure.

I took your submission and reveled in it. The power, the possession, the joy. I am greedy for you, your tears, your shudders, your stammers, your melting, sighing release.

I offered you submission, and waited, longing for your claim. Drive a stake through my heart and my body and leave me weak, helpless, wild, and strangely strong. No one can hurt me in your arms. Not even you.

I've never known this. Never known it could exist.

There's no point to this other than to say I am so completely yours. And you are mine.

I opened the bag, almost reluctantly.

Rose. Tossed money on the table. Strode out with new purpose, tucked in my pocket something pink, with blue eyes, floppy ears and little cotton tail.

I am strong again. I am restored. He's still there. I will find him.

\- THE END -

 


End file.
